Epic Games has today confirmed that tokens for downloadable versions of the original Gears of War will be stuffed into the initial shipments of the forthcoming franchise prequel, Gears of War: Judgement.

The promotion will be valid basically everywhere except Germany where a ban preventing the first two games from being sold remains in effect.

Interestingly factoid for you; Epic Games reckon that well over half of Gears of War 3 players have yet to play the 2006 original. For reference, the download comes at a weighty 6.3 GB.

Free stuff folks; its never bad. Well, not usually anyway.

Gears of War: Judgment will launch exclusively on 360 on March 19th, 2013. A European release is expected soon after in the same month.

Konami have just released a new gameplay teaser for their 3DS Castlevania debut, Castlevania Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate.

Developers Mercurysteam, who were the same outfit behind the home console versions of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow are also doing coding duties for this one too and as the trailer after the jump ably demonstrates, the game looks mighty impressive on Nintendo‘s 3D handheld; boasting some really quite decent visuals and an alleged 20 hour single-player campaign.

Project X Zone, a 3DS strategy RPG thing that contains a veritable smorgasbord of notable ladies and gents from various Sega, Capcom and Namco Bandai franchises, is due to make a splash in North America and Europe this Summer after a successful Japanese release late last year.

The game itself is one great big mash-up in which owing to a balls-up in the space-time continuum (the usual then), characters from these different worlds are able to scrap it out with each other in a combo-heavy, side-on fighting game style with a dash of exploration thrown in on a big old grid-based map.

The game itself is actually a follow-up to the rather obscure Namco x Capcom which released exclusively for the PS2 in Japan way back in 2005.

We’ve got the massively chaotic ten minute extended trailer which was used a few months back to promote the Japanese release after the jump.

Blizzard have just kicked out the CG introduction movie for the second part in their StarCraft II series; Heart of the Swarm.

As you might expect from a Blizzard forged video, it has the sort of crazily high production values which make you think that the company should probably get their CG artists to animate some full-blown movies based on their IP and then rake in the monies.

The eye-blistering trailer can be seen after the break and as you might guess, its a bit of a doozy.

After singing Sony‘s praises this morning with the fantastic 13 for ’13 Sale starting off tomorrow, a sale where PS Plus Members get a whopping 75%off select games, it took just one quick update to make me realize that Sony’s Instant Game Collection is a goddamned waste.

This week’s “offering” from the mighty Sony is friggin Foosball 2012 for the PS3 and Vita. That’s right. FOOSBALL. Good lord, what a perfect way to completely take the wind out of our sails. In addition to that, we can get the game Escape Vektor for 20% off at $7.99.

Our European buddies are getting Pinball Arcade, which is a truly fantastic collection of 4 classic pinball tables with DLC available for plenty more tables. Once again, Europe is handily kicking our asses when it comes to the Instant Game Collection.

And when I say it’s a big ass sale, it’s a pretty big ass sale. Awesome prices on great stuff with the 13 for ’13 Sale on PSN starting tomorrow, January 22nd.

Games like Jak & Daxter, LittleBigPlanet Karting, Shank 2 and more all with massive discounts that are even bigger if you’re a PlayStation Plus member! 13 different games at 50% off and 75% off for PS Plus. 13 movies also on sale, but sadly not at the same massively discounted prices.

Get the full list of everything on sale after the jump and prepare to buy yourself some PSN Credit because that game sale list is really nice lookin! Read More »

Oh, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, I think I’m going to love you very much. Or hate your guts. A lot.

The reason for my duplicity is simple; Konami and developer Platnium Games have just released a trailer for the game which pays special attention to some of the boss encounters you’ll have. Now, I relish a challenge (usually) but these guys just look like they’re going to punish anybody who doesn’t have Jedi reactions with extreme prejudice.

Naturally that would exclude me from being able to beat them, but thankfully, a demo for the game will be released on January 22nd, meaning that I’ll have ample opportunity to brush up on my skills or cry in a corner before the game comes out sometime next month.

Give the trailer a look after the break and despair. Oh yes, despair horribly.

Fancy having a taste of what single-player goodness God of War: Ascension will be offering when the game releases in March? Sony has you covered, as they’ve just announced that a single-player demo of the game will arrive sometime in February.